Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Rudolph Pickett Blesh was born January 21, 1899 in Guthrie, Oklahoma. He studied at Dartmouth College and held jobs writing jazz reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Herald Tribune in the 1940s. He was a prolific promoter of jazz concerts, particularly New Orleans jazz, and hosted a jazz radio program, This Is Jazz, in 1947.

In collaboration with Harriet Janis, mother of jazz band leader Conrad Janis, wrote the book They All Played Ragtime, which was published in 1950 by Alfred A. Knopf. A promotional record consisting of Maple Leaf Rag recorded to piano roll by Jelly Roll Morton in 1907.

With renewed public interest in ragtime music, Blesh founded Circle Records in 1946, which recorded new material from aging early jazz musicians in conjunction with the Library of Congress recordings of Jelly Roll Morton. Together they sparked renewed interest in the music of Joseph Lamb, James P. Johnson, and Eubie Blake, among others.

Retiring from writing in 1971 Rudi held professorships at several universities later in his life, and wrote liner notes to jazz albums almost up until the time of his death. In 1976, he was nominated for a Grammy Award for his liner notes to Joplin: The Complete Works of Scott Joplin performed by Dick Hyman.

Jazz critic, promoter and enthusiast Rudi Blesh died on August 25, 1985, on his farm in Gilmanton, New Hampshire from a myocardial infarction, aged 86.

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